Dům U Nováků, Art Nouveau department store in New Town, Prague, Czech Republic.
Dům U Nováků is an Art Nouveau department store in the New Town district of Prague, located on Vodíčkova Street near Wenceslas Square. The five-story facade is covered in floral motifs, colored glass, and ornamental metal balconies that run across its full width.
The building was originally constructed in a classical style and then fully transformed into Art Nouveau in 1904 by Czech architect Osvald Polívka. That redesign placed it among the clearer examples of the new artistic direction that reshaped Prague at the start of the 20th century.
The name comes from the Novák family, who originally ran a business here and gave the building its identity. The facade still shows the detailed mosaic work and ornamental glass that skilled craftspeople produced at the time.
The building is on Vodíčkova Street and easy to reach on foot from Wenceslas Square or the Můstek metro station. To get a clear look at the facade details without many people in the way, mornings or quieter weekdays tend to work best.
Painter Jan Preisler designed the colored glass windows and floral mosaics on the facade, giving the building an artistic quality that goes beyond a typical commercial project. That collaboration between architecture and fine art was unusual for a department store of that time.
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